Murder suspect stabs sheriff’s deputy before being gunned down by authorities

ChiccoDodiFC/iStock(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — A man on the run for murder in Tennessee stabbed a sheriff’s deputy before he was gunned down by law enforcement in Texas on Monday, authorities said.

Peter Bohning, 34, of Kent, Connecticut, was spotted by authorities in Gaines County, Texas, some 1,000 miles away from where he allegedly attacked a couple on Friday in Nashville, Tennessee.

Bohning died in a Texas hospital on Monday morning after being shot during the altercation with the sheriff’s deputy, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.

Nashville police initially named Bohning as a person of interest in the stabbing that left Donald Zirkle, 59, dead and his 58-year-old wife, Leigh Ann Zirkle, seriously injured. Police identified him as a suspect on Monday.

The Zirkles were sitting on their back porch in Nashville on Friday afternoon when Bohning allegedly approached them to ask for directions, police said. Investigators aren’t exactly sure what happened next, but the encounter suddenly turned deadly when Bohning allegedly began stabbing the couple.

Leigh Ann Zirkle fled the scene and collapsed in the street after sustaining “significant” stab wounds, including one to her neck, police said. Her husband was found critically wounded inside the home and transported to a local hospital where he later died, police said.

Bohning’s car, a silver Subaru sedan with Connecticut license plates, was found “inexplicably parked” at the side of the home with its rear doors open. He allegedly fled the scene in the Zirkle’s 2010 gray Toyota Camry, police said.

The Gaines County sheriff’s deputy in Texas encountered Bohning on Monday morning while answering a call about a suspicious vehicle. That vehicle was the Zirkle’s Toyota Camry, police said.